There's a Scarecrow in the woods
by MasterCaster
Summary: A farmer walks along a trail in the woods only to find a new area that he has never explored. He then finds a lone scarecrow. It's just a regular scarecrow...right?


_Somewhere in the countryside..._

A local farmer partakes in a stroll through the woods with his loyal dog on a cool fall afternoon.

The gentle breeze flows past the farmer's face which gives him a feeling of relaxation. The autumn has always been his favorite time of the year with the leaves changing colors, the environment cooling down from the heat of the summer, and preperations for the coming winter season.

Later after the walk, he plans on heading into town and asking out that cute woman he's been having his eye on lately.

As the two continued to walk, the farmer felt the need to take a leak so he turned and walked up behind some trees and did his business.

Suddenly, his dog started to growl.

Silly dog must've spotted a deer or something. Just a reminder that hunting season is close.

The farmer walked back onto the path and looked to where his dog was facing. The dog began to bark towards some bushes.

"Come down, boy." said the farmer as he looked as well, but hust above the hedge, he could swear that he sees something. Walking through the bushes, the farmer looked ahead to see another path that the bushes were blocking and just ahead was a small clearing with what seemed to be...another person.

Now the farmer didn't like people intruding on his land unkess they were invited or just had business with him and he was ready to give this person a peice of his mind!

So the farmer quickly approached where the person stood only to stop once he was close enough.

It was a lone scarecrow leaning against a wooden crucifix-like stand with its arms stretched out against wooden boards.

The scarecrow itself was dressed in raggedy burlap clothing with a burlap sack for head and a straw hat on top of its noggin.

The farmer was confused as to why this was here and not in a field like how all scarecrows are supposed to be. But most importantly: who put this here? He sure didn't. Then again, he just found this area of the woods so it's not far fetched to say that it may have been here for a long time. But the strangest thing is how new it looks. The clothes and hat didn't look tattered or worn out. They almost looked new.

Decided to come back later, the farmer started to turn around and walk away until something immediately caught his eye.

The scarecrow's left arm fell to its side.

Just a second ago, it was stretched out but was now hanging limp.

The farmer just passed it off that the wrist bindings just broke. But something about this scarecrow just seemed too weird to ignore.

So the farmer slowly approached the scarecrow until he was finally face-to-face with it. He looked at the arm that fell limp to notice that there was no binding around its wrist, the ground, or at the area where the arm was supposed to be hanging.

That's when he noticed that the scarecrow did seem a little more bigger than any he had seen before. Almost if someone was in a costume...

The farmer reached for the limping hand and gave a light squeeze on its glove to feel if there was anything that felt like an actual hand but heard the light crinkling of hay instead. Withdrawing his hand, the farmer noticed some strange brown dust on his finger tips. Curious, he brought it up to his nose and sniffed to see if he could identify the dust only to sneeze.

"Stupid allergies!" the farmer cursed.

The farmer the wiped the dust onto his pants and decided to hit the road until he noticed the chest of the scarecrow slowly expand and stopped immediately as if it was quickly inhaling air.

While looking dead into the scarecrow's eyes, the farmer reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a pocket knife and flicked the blade out.

Thoughts of stabbing it came to mind but also coming to his mind was the possibility that if there is someone in there, what if they're bound and gagged? Someone did go missing sometime ago so it may be a possibility.

The farmer brought his blade up to the scarecrow's torso and carefully carved the burlap. Opening it up slightly, the farmer found nothing but hay. He was about to bury his hand into it to see if he can make contact with a human body only to be interrupted by a sudden bark from his dog, causing him to look away.

When he looked back at the scarecrow, it's right arm shot up and grabbed the farmer bu the throat. Panicking, the farmer tried to use his blade only for the scarecrow to break the weak bindings on his other arm and grabbed the hand that held the blade. The scarecrow headbutted the farmer making him drop the knife and kicked him to the ground while he was disoriented.

Jumping off of the stand, the scarecrow grabbed the knife from the ground and scurried to where the farmer was on the ground. The farmer tried to get up but was too late at the scarecrow plunged the knife into his chest.

Blood began to seep from the wound as the scarecrow removed the blade only to begin to stab the farmer repeatedly until he finally died.

The scarecrow stood up and looked at his blood covered glove.

"Another failure." he sighed annoyingly as he hid the farmers body in a bush and left.

* * *

Sometime later, the scarecrow arrives at a small cabin deep into the woods.

Entering through the door, the scarecrow takes off his mask to reveal that he is indeed a human in a scarecrow costume, a criminal known as Jonathan Crane.

Jonathan walks over to an old desk which contains formulas for fear toxins, notes about new ideas, and a laptop that keeps tabs on the current events happening in Gotham City.

Jonathan then picks up a tape recorder and hits record.

"This is Jonathan Crane. It has been two weeks and three days since I've left Gotham City. After my latest capture by Batman, I realized that I need to find out other ways to strike fear rather than gas. So after I broke out of Arkham Asylum, I managed to hitchhike my way out of the city and out of Jersey while dodging the police and Batman. I decided to hide away in the country side where I can test out a new version of fear toxin. A form that works by skin contact rather than breathing in gas. So far, it hasn't worked. My first victim only grew nauseous and the second victim didn't react at all even after breathed it in through his nose. But I know that I'm close to a breakthrough. And once I succeed, I will return to Gotham and spread fear once more. I know that Batman is awaiting my return, I hope he is! My new toxin will shatter his mind like glass and everyone will bow to me as the god of fear! Jonathan Crane, signing off."

Jonathan placed the tape recording down onto the table as he begins to work on the next batch, the anticipation of seeing his foe cowering in fear makes him smile.

* * *

 **This was my first attempt at a Batman story and I hope you all enjoyed. And this is inspired by Crypt TV's "The Scarecrow". Make sure you check it out.**


End file.
